The race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has been going on for months (and it feels like years). Yet in some ways the battle only begins tonight with the first televised debate. The specifics of this first round of debates on the Democratic side are historically novel. While there […] Read more »
A Lot of Candidates May Make It Seem Like Democracy Is Working, But It Isn’t
If you were hiring someone for a vitally important job, would you begin by interviewing 10 applicants at a time, hoping that the ones with the snappiest sound bites might also be most qualified for the job? Of course not. And yet that’s the bizarre logic behind this week’s Democratic […] Read more »
Primary debates matter. But not as much as you probably think they do.
… In the fluid stages of the campaign, debates can produce a media narrative that gives a long-shot candidate a temporary bump or, maybe more important, contribute to the rise or fall of a front-runner. The 2020 Democratic race is in that early, fluid stage: Media narratives aren’t set, and […] Read more »
What We Know About The Impact Of Primary Debates
… Political science tends to be skeptical of general election debates. The people who are most likely to tune into debates tend to be highly informed and already engaged in politics — and thus already likely to have formed an opinion. This has become especially true in recent years as […] Read more »
What do Democrats want to hear about at the debates? (Hint: It’s not Trump.)
Democratic voters will be paying close attention to the opening candidate debates next week, and they have strong views about what they want discussed. Hint: It’s not Donald Trump. Health care, immigration, the economy, climate change, education and taxes top the list of issues Democrats told a USA TODAY/Suffolk University […] Read more »
Who Are The Swing Voters In 2020?
As Democratic candidates prepare for their first primary debates, President Trump is gearing up for the general election by launching his reelection campaign in Orlando this week. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew debates who the persuadable voters are in the 2020 race. The gang also […] Read more »